Funnyish Q & A with my husband

I am sick with swine flu, or H1N1 for those picky proper-terminology people.

It's strange to be congested in my chest and to be coughing without any drippy nose.  All my skin hurts.  I'm pretty tired and yet can't sleep.  I just bought some new books (why I never finish Les Miserables):  Super Freakonomics, Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon, and The Voice of Knowledge by don Miguel Ruiz.  And yet, I'm too tired to read any.

Everyone in our family is sick to different degrees.  It all started with Daisy and Montana on Sunday.  I didn't get sick until Friday.  I'd been having some stomach pains for a week so I thought that was the extent of my swine flu but really I hadn't got it yet.  Why did it take so long for me to get it?  Weird.

We've all been quarantined for a week.  We're going a bit stir crazy. 

So, I called Jude up to bed with me and decided now was as good a time as any to Q&A him about some funny stories he has, to give me something to do.  (Literally "called". I had to call him on his cell phone because he couldn't hear my croaks.)

* * *

Me:  What about that story from when you worked at a restaurant and some rock star guy came in?

Jude:  It wasn't a rock star guy.  It was the band Trooper who came in for breakfast.

Me:  Well, you know how terrible I am at remembering story details.

Jude:  So, Trooper comes in and they order pancakes.

Me:  How old were you?

Jude:  I think I would have been like, 13.  And it was a very busy Saturday morning.  I had to clear the table for them as their waiter while they were sitting there.  They had to sit at a dirty table.  And I accidentally wiped some toast crumbs on one of these guy's laps.  I don't think he said anything about it.  So, then they order and I bring them their pancakes and I asked them how the food was and they said it was fine but they weren't happy with the flies as big as turkey buzzards.

Me:  Is that it?  That's n--

Jude:  That's not a funny story.  The funny story from that restaurant was the cheeseburger deluxe story.

Me:  Right. I just remembered that.

Jude:  So, same restaurant, flash forward a year, me and my 14-year-old twin brother are THE cooking team on the 8-4 shift on Saturday and Sunday mornings.  Looking back on it, how irresponsible were these owners? Two 14-year-olds as the cooks.  So, we'd do the breakfast and lunch rushes.  And it was a pretty busy restaurant because it was right on a main highway.  If a Greyhound bus or a bus full of tourists--

Me:  Wait. A bus full of tourists?  This is central Alberta, where are they going?

Jude:  I don't know. Who cares?  It doesn't matter.  So, one Saturday we had two buses stop so the restaurant was full and people were lining up outside, waiting to come in and the waitresses were freaking out.  My twin brother had picked a bad time to go get high just before the buses came in.  And so in an effort to cook as much as possible as quickly as possible, so what we'd do is we would cook all the same type of order at one time, instead of cooking per table.  We'd cook all the steak sandwiches and move on to another type of order.  By the time I got to the cheeseburger deluxes, we were working very fast and getting a little disorganised.  We had about 18 cheeseburger deluxes to cook at one time. 

Now, in this restaurant, when the cooks had put a meal together they would place the plate of food on top of a counter on top of the grill and the waitresses would reach from the other side and grab the plate of food.  We were about halfway through the cheeseburger deluxe batch and as my twin brother is raising the cheeseburger deluxe plate up to the ledge, the cheeseburger fell off and went down the back of the grill, into the garbage chute.

Me:  *giggles*  I didn't remember that.

Jude:  And in his besotted state, Cheech decides to grab the cheeseburger out of the garbage, from underneath the grill, and slap a new bun on it.  I was horrified, but I was 14, we were in a rush, and it was hilarious.  I was laughing so hard that when I was raising my cheeseburger deluxe plate up to the counter, the cheeseburger slipped off the plate into the deep fryer. 

Me:  THAT'S what I remember.

Jude:  Doubled over with laughter I said, "What the heck? Give me a new bun."

Me:  Did anyone complain about their order?

Jude:  No.  But there was every possibility that up the highway, two people on a bus, had very unsettled stomachs.

* * *

Me:  Okay, tell me the fire rescue story.

Jude:  Alright. So, I'm in law school in Toronto and one evening I'm going over to a fellow student's place to study with him and I'm about to knock on his door when I see that the house next to his that shares the same driveway has got a lot of smoke coming out the window.  So, I ring the doorbell and tell him to call the fire department while I quickly go and check to see if everyone is out of the house.  I go over and I realise that the building on fire has an upstairs and a downstairs apartment.  So, I start on the downstairs apartment and I'm yelling and pounding on the door.  And I wasn't sure what to do but it was night time and I thought maybe they were asleep and I could see a lot of flames coming from upstairs so I thought, What the heck the place is burning down anyway, so I kicked in the door and ran into every room to make sure there was no one there.  There wasn't but on the table was a large, freshly cooked Hawaiian pizza.  As a student, you notice these things.  I almost grabbed a slice on the way upstairs but I thought rescuing someone while eating pizza is not the classic way of doing things.

So, I'm back outside, and I'm pounding on the door and there's no answer, and I see more flames coming up so again, I kick in the door.  Once that door was open, I had to go up a set of stairs to get to the living quarters and I couldn't get up to the top of the stairs because of the burning flames and smoke and I realised that if there was anyone there I couldn't do anything for them anyway.  

So, I ran back outside which is when the fire department came.  I ran over to the guy who looked like he was in charge and explained to him that I'd gone into the basement and didn't see anybody and that I tried to go into the other apartment.  Then I explained to him there was a pizza in the basement.  His only question was, "What kind of pizza?"  So, I see some guys go knock some windows out with the ladders, as casually as you or I would eat an apple, and two guys went into the basement and got the pizza.

* * *

Jude:  There's the beaver hunting story.

Me:  You'd tell that on my blog?

Jude:  It's actually not that funny.  It's just a little... anecdote.

Me:  It was funny to me.  But I'm your wife.  Okay, tell it.

Jude:  It was about 11 o'clock in the morning, court was wrapped up because an accused didn't show up, so I went to the court clerk's counter to ask about some documents and to kill a few minutes.  When I got there the clerk knew what had happened and asked me what I was going to do for the rest of the day.  There was a woman also at the court clerk's counter who was obviously listening, which I didn't really know at first.  So, I told the clerk I was probably just going to go back to my motel room and do a little work on some files.  The unknown woman piped up to say coyly that I could pass some time at her place... beaver hunting.  My initial reaction was that I wasn't interested in shooting giant rodents, until I clued in to what she was saying.  Then I just said something lame and got the heck out of there.

Me:  You said something about how you had a policy to not go... I don't know.  Into the woods with strangers and guns or something?

Jude:  That's right.

Me:  How come stuff like that never happens to me?  I need to be less sheltered if I want to get hit on.

* * *

Jude:  I guess I could tell the story about the guy who puked in the courtroom.

Me:  Which guy?

Jude:  This was in Nothern Ontario and I was conducting a day-long trial and my second witness is a guy who was a no-goodnick and reluctant to testify.  I told him to just tell the truth, tell us what he honestly remembered, and just get over the fact that he had to testify.  When he took the stand after he was sworn in, he tells the judge he's not feeling good.  The judge asked me if I knew that and if I wanted an adjournment for this witness.  I thought the witness was just trying to weasel out of testifying.  So, about six questions in, the guy throws up.  The judge is upset and turns to me, about to yell, and I say, "Look, I went to law school, not med school.  How was I to know he was telling the truth about that?"

Me:  That's your story?  You have better court stories than that.  Okay, what about that guy who got run over three times.  Can we tell that story?

Jude:  No.  Can't tell that one. 

Me:  Why not? 

Jude:  Because it's still fairly fresh.

* * *

And so, that's the best we could do while too sick to want to do anything or to care about much.  And all his best stories will have to remain offline for now, until maybe one day in his retirement when he writes a book. 

Daily Gratitudes

1. Daisy reading The Cat in the Hat to me tonight in bed, using at least 13 of her 100 expressions. 
2. Jude being someone I can talk to about nearly anything.
3. The actual sleep purring of Lulu beside me in bed right now.
4. The view of the field and highway and sunset from my bed.
5. Painkillers.  Imagine life without them?  I think I would have killed myself by now.  I'm sturdy like that.

Comments

[JQ]

There they gooooo
The boys are really rollin'
Someone better call the cops 'cause
The car is probably stolen
STOLEN!

[Susan]

These are mildly amusing. I can't wait for the book. (I can't believe that three-no, four people I know are writing books!) I didn't know Jude has a twin!
And, I hope you all have a speedy recovery.

[gabriellevalentine]

Those are great stories! =) I enjoyed that post!

[Lesa]

The story about the guy who got run over three times...oh my...I think I know that story...and remembering said story made me giggle. I am so ashamed! (and yet,still giggling.)